Tag Archives: Global team Of 200

It Is Safer To Give Birth In Estonia Or Slovenia Than The United States #SOWM

It Is Safer To Give Birth In Estonia Or Slovenia Than The United States #SOWM

According to the 2014 Mother’s Index Rankings published in the Save The Children’s State of the World’s Mothers Report last week,  you are statistically safer giving birth in Slovenia, (ranked the 17th safest country in which to give birth), or Estonia (ranked the 23rd), than you are in the United States of America (which is way down the list at number 31).  In fact last week at the launch of the State of the World’s Mothers Report at the United Nations in New york City I was shocked to learn that the United States is one of the few countries where the risk to mothers in childbirth has gone up rather than down.

Global Team of 200 Member Harriet Shugarman Exec. Dir. of ClimateMama, and Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children pictured here with the author at the State of the World's Mothers Report launch in NYC .

Global Team of 200 Member Harriet Shugarman, Exec. Dir. of ClimateMama, and Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children pictured here with the author at the State of the World’s Mothers Report launch in NYC .

The Mothers’ Index is part of the overall annual State of the World’s Mothers Report that Save The Children has produced for the past 15 years. The  five indicators used in the index are the lifetime risk of maternal death, the under 5 year child mortality rate, the expected years of formal schooling, the gross national income per capita, and the participation of women in national government.

Credit:  Save The Children

Credit: Save The Children

To see how other countries rank you can view the entire Mothers’ Index HERE.

So why does the United States perform so poorly on the Mothers’ Index? According to the State of the World’s Mothers report :

Although the U.S. performs quite well on economic and educational status it lags behind all other top ranked countries on maternal health and children’s well-being, and performs quite poorly on political status ( the #of women in government).- Save The Children p. 74 State of the World’s Women Report

 

The lag in the United States is alarming, but this year the report specifically addresses the preventable maternal and child deaths in crisis-affected places.  The 2014 report focuses primarily on saving mothers and children, who tend to be the most vulnerable, in humanitarian crisis.  The launch event last week was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations. Save The Children responded immediately with aid to the crisis in the Philippines caused by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, as it has done in crisis areas around the world for over 90 years.   Save The Children provides health care, food, and protection to those most vulnerable in humanitarian crisis, most often the women and children. It is not surprising that all of bottom 10 countries on the Mothers’ Index are areas that have recently been in, or are currently in conflict situations, or experienced natural disaster.  Statistics in the report show that more than half of maternal and child deaths take place in these types of fragile settings.

Cover photo of the Save The Children's State of the World's Mothers Report Photo by Phil Moore

Cover photo of the Save The Children’s State of the World’s Mothers Report Photo by Phil Moore

Looking at trends so far in this century, we see how armed conflict, political instability and natural disasters have played a major role in undermining the well-being of mothers and children in the world’s poorest countries. We also see that progress is possible, even in countries suffering from devastating humanitarian crisis.- SOWM

One of the countries I was surprised to hear had made such progress was war-torn Afghanistan, which has moved up the Mothers’ Index list by 32 places. At the UN event Yasmin Haque, Deputy Director of the Office of Emergency Programmes for UNICEF noted that the key components for improvement in Afghanistan were the training of mid-wives, putting medical interventions in place for safe birth, educating girls, and immunization campaigns against vaccine preventable diseases.  Proving, as she said, that “the investment of minds and funding works”. She also noted that the recommendations coming from the State of the World’s Mothers Report are pressing.

HRH Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan and Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children

HRH Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan and Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children

Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan is a global champion for maternal and child health and she backed this up with the urgency of the Syrian crisis. She described things becoming so dire in the refugee camps bursting at the seams, that food rations from the World Food Program have recently been reduced by 20% per family to accommodate the influx.  Some of the Syrian mothers in these camps who were not breastfeeding their infants but using formula to feed their babies, have turned to sugar-water as a substitute as formula has become more and more scarce, and costly.

So what are the recommendations that this report says need to happen? You can read the detailed recommendations in the full SOWM report, but to give you an idea here are a few bullet points of the overall suggestions:

1. Ensure that even mothers and newborns in crisis areas have access to high quality health care. This includes ensuring at least the basic high-impact public health interventions of clean water, sanitation and vaccines. Increased number of female health care workers, and safe birth during the highest risk times of birth and the first week of life as recommended by the Every Newborn Action Plan.

2. Invest in women and girls and ensure their protection.  One component is that by educating girls and putting an end to child marriage entire communities are positively impacted. Educated girls grow up to better contribute to the economy, tend to have fewer children, and her children have better survival rates than children of uneducated mothers.

3. Build longer term resilience to minimize the damaging effects of crisis on health. Early warning systems need to be put in place. There is a need for community based disaster preparedness, response and contingency planning.  These plans should prioritize infants and children who often suffer the most in the face of disaster.

4. Design emergency interventions with a longer term view and the specific needs of mothers and newborns in mind. Prioritize maternal and newborn survival in crisis settings by ensuring access to safe birthing, medical care, and setting up specific safe spaces for them. Continue vaccines programs even during crisis.

5.Ensure adequate financing, coordination, and research to guarantee the above can be accomplished. This includes donor countries  committing to increased  long-term and reliable aid to fragile areas. Reconciling short-term disaster aid with long-term development financing, addressing gender issues, and proper data reporting.

We have the solutions to many of the issues impacting women and children around the world, stories of progress like Ethiopia and Afghanistan prove that it can be done.  The State of the World’s Mothers Report aims to highlight unmet needs, effective solutions, and recommended policy changes to that end.

global teamI was invited by Save The Children to the State of The World’s Mothers Report at the UN last week in NYC as a member of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health. Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.

 

Global Impact’s Women And Girls Fund On #InternationalWomen’sDay

Global Impact’s Women And Girls Fund On #InternationalWomen’sDay
Woman in Long Ampung, Borneo taken by Elizabeth Atalay

Woman in Long Ampung, Borneo taken by Elizabeth Atalay

I was trying not to stare at her earlobe, but finally I had to ask. Not in English mind you because she spoke the local dialect of her village in Kalimantan. I asked her in that international pantomime us travelers learn to speak. One earlobe hung to her chin weighted with gold rings like most of the women. It was the inverted crescent of the other ear that had caught my attention, where the decorative lobe had been cut off.  She stood and sliced the air with two hands holding an invisible scythe. Bending over she then grasped at the shorn earlobe.  Chuckles came from the other village women with whom I sat on the floor of the longhouse as she did this, and I nodded that I understood.

According to Global Impact, two-thirds of the labor to produce more than half the world’s food is done by women. Meanwhile women control less than 10 percent of the world’s assets. I had seen the women working in the fields, carrying thatched backpacks full of grain back to the village, and then pounding it into fine powder.  The missing earlobe was merely an occupational hazard. In turn she motioned to her belly in a sweeping outward gesture unmistakable as pregnancy, and then clasped her arms to her breast. I shook my head “no” and smiled.  I had no children yet, knowing as their faces flooded with pity that being in my mid twenties this would be shocking to them. Still, despite our cultural differences and our language barriers, I remember being amazed at the feeling of sisterhood I felt as their guest. I was a stranger from a faraway land, but as women we connected and understood each other on some very basic level.

This type of experience would repeat itself for me all round the world, fortifying my sense of global sisterhood as I went. The feeling was bolstered even more so after having my own children, knowing for women the experiences that go along with that are universal.  As is the love we feel for our children, and our hopes and dreams for their futures.  That sisterhood stays with me, as does the knowledge that the population most affected by global poverty is women and girls. Women and girls are integral in overcoming poverty, for a family, a community or a nation.

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This International Women’s Day, Global Impact has launched the Women and Girls Fund which harnesses four of the most respected charities working to help women and girls, CARE, World Vision, Plan International, and the International Center for Research on Women.  These charities work to provide education, health care, protection from violence, protection from sexual exploitation, and job training to women and girls around the world.

We women need to stick together in this world, it is unacceptable that 1 in 9 girls will be forced into marriage before her 15th birthday, or that nearly 300,000 women will die from preventable childbirth related causes.  Girls in the developing world face overwhelming odds from the day they are born.  By educating girls we give them the chance to rise out of poverty, earn a living, and send their own children to school one day.  With proper health care and nutrition we can ensure that they grow to contribute fully to their communities.  Together we can help change the world by simply investing in women and girls. I think about the women I met along my travels who fed me and housed me despite their meager means, and that stranger from a strange land that I was to them, and I want to give back.  I still appreciate the camaraderie we shared so many years and miles away from my here and now, and it calls me to action.

Global Impact’s Women and Girls Fund has the goal of helping women and girls everywhere to live healthy lives, protected, educated, respected, and empowered to reach their full potential. Through this fund you can join millions of people working to help women and girls. All contributions go directly to supporting programs to improve the lives of women and girls around the world.  Please visit www.togetherforwomen.org to learn more about this great opportunity to make a difference.

This post is a part of a sponsored awareness program that seeks to help women and girls everywhere live healthy lives wherein they are protected, respected, educated and empowered to reach their potential. Visit www.togetherforwomen.org.

global teamI wrote this post as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health. Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.

 

Ensuring Every Baby Survives It’s #FirstDay ; Save The Children’s Report on Newborn Health

Ensuring Every Baby Survives It’s #FirstDay ; Save The Children’s Report on Newborn Health

baby copy

When my first baby was born and handed to me all cleaned, and swaddled I looked up to my Doctor to ask “can I kiss her?” He laughed and said, “yes, she’s yours, you get to take her home”. Suddenly I was responsible for a life! Just like that!

Each time as a mother giving birth I was on edge waiting to know that everything is going to be o.k. Even for baby number four, probably more so for baby number four, since I was of “advanced maternal age”, I was worried. That was here. In the USA, with modern medicine and an ambulance at the end of a  911 call. You might be surprised to learn that despite all that we still fall behind 68 other countries in newborn deaths the first day of life. Pretty shocking, isn’t it? In developing countries however the numbers are far worse. Too many mothers are not getting the pre-natal care they need, and often birthing alone in unsanitary conditions.

The first 24 hours of a babies life are the most critical, and while advances in preventing child mortality have cut that number in half according to a new report out today from Save The Children, Newborn health still continues to lag behind in progress. The report states that nearly half of all deaths of children under five are newborns. The greatest tragedy is that most of these deaths are preventable.

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In many rural communities there is a shortage of healthcare workers to aid in safe delivery. With community based healthcare workers in place, with the knowledge to resuscitate a newborn who is not breathing, and teach new mothers techniques such as breastfeeding and kangaroo care, newborn lives could be saved.

Save The Children is calling on both world leaders and private sector partners to join in what is being called the Five Point Newborn Promise in 2014 to save newborn lives. This plan calls to:

  • Issue a defining and accountable declaration to end all preventable newborn mortality, saving 2 million newborn lives a year and stopping the 1.2 million stillbirths during labor
  • Ensure that by 2025 every birth is attended by trained and equipped health workers who can deliver essential newborn health interventions
  • Increase expenditure on health to at least the WHO minimum of US$60 per person
  • To pay for the training, equipping and support of health workers, and remove user fees for all maternal, newborn and child health services, including emergency obstetric care
  • The private sector, including pharmaceutical companies, should help address unmet needs by developing innovative solutions and increasing availability for the poorest to new and existing products for maternal, newborn and child health.

The new report, “Ending Newborn Deaths,” shows one half of first day deaths around the world could be prevented if the mother and baby had access to free health care and a skilled midwife.

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The Save The Children “Ending Newborn Deaths” Report

Read the full report and find out more about how you can be a part of the change by visiting the Save The Children to get involved.

I wrote this post as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health.

Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.

global team

The Global Team of 200 Trip to Johannesburg, South Africa 2013

The Global Team of 200 Trip to Johannesburg, South Africa 2013
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The Author & Jennifer James in Soweto

It already seems like a dream that less than a week ago I was in Johannesburg, South Africa as a member of the Global Team of 200, for the #socialgoodmomsjoburg Insight Trip.  There I met up with Global Team of 200 founder Jennifer James who arrived by way of  Zambia where she had just spent the week with Malaria No More. She had been with them to report on the rolling out of their #PowerofOne campaign to provide malaria tests and treatments for children in regions of Africa, where Malaria claims a child a minute.

So we met in Johannesburg, the second largest city on the African continent with a population of over 3.6 million,  its O.R.Tambo airport is the busiest in all of Africa.  I’ll be honest, it took us a few days to begin to figure out this massive modern city, that locals refer to as either Joburg or Jozi.  There are eleven official languages spoken in Johannesburg, and from our experience, no attempt at political correctness when talking about the three main racial categories its inhabitants are put into. People are plainly referred to as white, black or colored (lighter skin blacks or referring to Indian or Malaysians from what I gather). We were there to meet with Global Team partners and NGOs to get an on the ground look at the issues they tackle first hand.

From the surface Johannesburg could be any large American city, but the vibe is very different, and as Americans one of the first things we noticed was the lingering racial divide. It is also said to be the wealthiest province in South Africa, and while we glimpsed the luxury lifestyles in the suburbs from the outside, our work took us into the homes of the poorest of poor. We witnessed first hand the great disparity of wealth that  exists, and as an outsider to a country with so much wealth, is difficult understand at any level.

Johannesburg collage

Johannesburg also has a reputation as being one of the more dangerous cities of the world. Fortunately we never felt threatened in any way and of course used the same common sense we would have in any major metropolitan area.  Certainly the townships we visited for our work would be considered some of the most dangerous areas in the city.  As in most places, statistically the crime occurs at the highest rate within residents of communities themselves and not on visitors, aside from petty theft, but the warnings are still to be taken seriously.  While visiting with the women’s collective Rebecca’s Well we took a walk through Alexandra Township with a local woman from the organization as our guide.   Our greetings were met with smiles as people went about their daily lives.  The people we met in the township were friendly and some asked to have their pictures taken. When others noticed, they wanted their picture taken too, just to be able to see the images of themselves that I captured with my lens in the viewfinder, laughing or smiling in approval when they did.

One of the launching points for Jennifer’s social good work was her trip several years ago to Kenya as a ONEMom. Her experiences with ONE in Kenya made her realize how valuable the impact of seeing the things we write about first hand was, and that is the experience she decided to give her  Global Team of 200 members.  Documama is a ONE Moms Community Partner, so we were thrilled to have the opportunity to visit the ONE offices in Johannesburg that are the Headquarters for all of Africa.

South Africa has the highest AIDS rate in the world, so the work of one of our Global Team of 200 partner organizations, Marie Stopes , is critical here where it works to provide services to curtail the spread of the disease.  They also provide education and critical family planning services to underserved populations around the city.

Johannesburg

In between visits with organizations we  toured the area to get a better sense of Johannesburg, and even had the chance to visit a lion reserve outside of the city. In Soweto we made sure to visit the Mandela house, and Hector Peterson square.  We got out into the suburbs to see the lifestyle outside of downtown and found areas with amazing restaurants like Melrose Arch and Parkhurst.  In Sandton and Rosebank we passed by large modern shopping centers, juxtaposing the Alexandra Township that we knew to be just down the street. It wasn’t until our last day in Joburg when we went to the Neighborgoods Market in Braamfontain, that we found the South Africa we had both expected, or hoped for. In a neighborhood undergoing gentrification downtown we witnessed the type of community interaction we had been looking to see all along. It struck us that apartheid fell just a short twenty years ago. People my age would have been in their mid-twenties already when it ended, and so the young hip crowd that populated the marketplace would truly be the generation to hopefully grow up and change the divided face of Johannesburg. Looking around the diverse crowd, they already are.

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I can’t wait to share the insights from our trip and each of our NGO visits throughout the week , each one different, enlightening, and educational in vastly different ways. I hope you’ll join me!

global teamI travelled to Johannesburg, South Africa as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health.

Our Motto: Individually we are all-powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.

 

My Polio Vaccine #endpolio, #polio, #vaccineswork #socialgoodmomsjoburg

My Polio Vaccine #endpolio, #polio, #vaccineswork #socialgoodmomsjoburg

World Polio Day October 24th

polio copyAs the needle plunged into my arm I squeezed my eyes shut, not that it hurt, but I was not expecting to have to get a Polio shot that day.  To travel to South Africa from the USA you do not need a Visa, and very few vaccines are suggested.  This makes it one of the easiest African countries for us Americans to travel to.  So I was surprised when the Polio vaccine was one of the highly suggested ones as I prepared for an Insight Trip to Johannesburg with Global Team of 200 and its founder Jennifer James.

As a United Nations Foundation Shot@Life Champion I shouldn’t have been surprised, one thing I have learned is that as long as Polio exists anywhere in the world it is still a threat to all of us. Although it hasn’t been found in South Africa since 1989, we know from the recent cases of the disease popping up in countries like Somalia and Kenya, that the virus is only one boarder crossing or plane ride away.

If you ask anyone  old enough to remember back when it existed In the US, they grow wide-eyed at the topic.  They all remember the terror that gripped communities before the Polio vaccine arrived in 1962.

My own mother had been the victim of a Polio outbreak as a young child.  She was lucky enough to survive, but with one leg shorter than the other that served as a reminder to the ordeal.  I can only imagine how frightened my grandmother must have been that her first-born might succumb to the disease.

Today Polio has been eradicated in 99% of the world; only the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria still have the problem of indigenous wild polio virus transmissions.  Rotary International established World polio Day in honor of Jonas Salk, who developed the vaccine against poliomyelitis. The Polio vaccine has led the fight in eradicating the disease, but if polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere.  As a global community we are in the final push to eradicate Polio once and for all.

It is important that action is taken now before we lose this opportunity.  The gaps in funding have forced those implementing the vaccine to scale back their polio vaccination efforts creating vulnerable populations worldwide. If we do not stop this disease now, it is estimated an additional 200,000 children a year will become paralyzed.

Today, October 24 is World Polio Day; a day to commemorate the progress we’ve made and how much further we have to go. In honor of World Polio Day, a resolution has been introduced in the U.S. Senate to commemorate this important day, and we need your help to get it passed.  Contact your Senator and tell them to support S. Res. 270.

Won’t it be great when no one needs to get the Polio vaccine anymore?

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